Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman has said it was 'common gossip' at the BBC
that Jimmy Savile liked 'young girls' before he was outed as a paedophile.

Mr Paxman's claim was part of the stinging criticism he levelled at the BBC in transcripts of the Pollard inquiry published by the Corporation today.

Some 3,000 pages of evidence, some of which was heavily redacted, were published as part of the report into the BBC's handling of the Savile investigation.

Despite Paxman saying Savile's predilection for under age girls was widely known at the BBC, several senior figures claimed they had not heard the rumours or believed they were largely unfounded.

Former director-general Mark Thompson said he had "never heard" rumours that Savile had a "dark side." While former Head of News Helen Boaden said she believed the Savile allegations were "smoke without fire largely".

She said: "It was not just the CPS. I took the strong impression from my conversation with Steve [Mitchell] that actually this was smoke without fire largely.

"And I think I was affected in this by the assumption that stuff like this comes out when celebrities die, which may be wrong on my part but I think that had to some extent conditioned the way I saw it."

Mr Paxman also told the Pollard inquiry that "the important question" was how Savile had been allowed to rise to such heights within the BBC.

He said: "What was the BBC doing promoting this absurd figure, this absurd and malign figure? And I think that has to do with the fact of the BBC having been aloof from popular culture for so long.

"Suddenly pirate radio comes along and all these people in metaphorical cardigans suddenly have to deal with an influx – once pirate radio, once pop radio is legalised, they suddenly have to deal with an influx of people from a very, very different culture and they never got control of them and I'm not sure even now they have."

On certain pages of the transcript of Paxman's statement, more than half is redacted.

The BBC says this censorship was necessary to prevent employees being libelled and was a move to protect sources.